Brett Halliday - Million Dollar Handle

“Not bad for the spur of the moment. It might save his job. They need people up there who can think fast on the phone.”

“My point is, Mike, if you want to go that route, you have to get in with it fast, and stick to it. Any weaseling and you’re finished.”

“That may be good public relations advice, Tim, but I’m not going to take it. I’ve decided to see how it goes. How about your sports man, Wanamaker?”

“We’re admitting he took the money. Most of it was petty stuff through the PR department-a couple of junkets, they picked up the tab for two weeks in the Bahamas. But that adds to your problem. A News man is involved. Mike Shayne is involved, and that’s the same Mike Shayne who’s fed considerable hot information to his friend Rourke across the years. We can’t quibble on this. We’ve got to hit hard, to clear our own skirts. I’m signing the story, and unless I have something from you I have to write it Painter’s way, as much as it pains me. What did he offer you in that conversation? You can give me that, at least.”

“To leave me out of it altogether if I told him everything I know about Surfside. I can’t trust Painter to keep that kind of bargain. He’d leak it, and blame it on somebody else in his office.”

“One direct question. Did you beat up Geary in that parking lot?”

“Tim, until I get some legal advice, I can’t answer any direct questions, even from you, even off the record. I’m more than a little foggy right now, but I think I understand the situation. Painter thinks this is going to destroy my business. He may be right. But it won’t kill me. I’m sick of all the people in this town who’ve been waiting around hoping to see me fall on my face. I may have to get out of Miami. Seriously, is that such a tragedy? Your editorial page has to maintain that this is God’s earthly paradise, and anybody who thinks otherwise is a Communist sympathizer. I was really impressed with San Francisco-it’s a great town. Maybe I’m due for a change.”

Again, in spite of the usual afternoon pressures in the News office, Rourke let a few seconds tick past.

Shayne broke the silence. “Just write it straight. If you try to qualify it you’ll make it sound worse. Now I’ve got to get some sleep.”

He broke the connection. After finishing his makeshift meal, he set the alarm radio for seven and fell asleep at once. He was awakened by the seven o’clock news.

It was still bad. The Teamsters local had voted to stand behind its president, who was down in Geary’s book for a total take of $24,000. The state legislature had been so indignant about the disclosures that they had transacted little business that afternoon. A memorial service for Max Geary, arranged before the story broke, was to take place at Surfside that night, between the fourth and fifth races. The Miami Beach mayor, a United States Senator, a rabbi, a monsignor and several show business personalities were scheduled to pay tribute to the dead sportsman. And Norma Culhane, the Jackson Memorial nurse who had given Painter his affidavit tying Shayne to Geary’s beating, had been located and questioned. Her replies had been taped.

“‘Mr. Geary was holding my wrist that hard. He’d taken a drop or two, certainly, but I wouldn’t say he was rambling or anything like that. He didn’t dare speak to the police about it because they’re all of them as crooked as a hairpin, those are his words. That the beating was done to him by Michael Shayne, and he spelled it for me, with the y, to fix it in my recollection. That Michael Shayne had spoken to him in a threatening manner. I don’t condone all this violence, this giving and taking of bribes. I know the old saying that it takes two to tango, but my own feeling is that Mr. Geary was forced by threats to pay out those amounts of money. I attend the dog races myself, and I believe Mr. Geary always did his best to provide the public with an honest race for their money.’ That was Miss Norma Culhane, speaking on the steps of Jackson Memorial. Now back to Brad Walker at WCBN. Brad?”

Shayne snapped it off, so hard that the knob came loose in his fingers. He threw it across the room, and listened to it bounce. A shower, a shave, clean clothes and a drink helped hardly at all.

After taking his Buick out of the garage, he double-parked and picked up a News on Twelfth Avenue. He read Rourke’s story before moving off. Rourke had warned him it would be damning, and it was. There was a boxed front-page editorial on declining moral standards in the city, the inescapability of corruption in an atmosphere where everybody, presumably with the exception of newspaper publishers, was out for the fast buck. The only remedy suggested was continued vigilance and reform in the system of allotting racing dates. Perhaps four dog tracks in one metropolitan area were too many. The sports page carried a statement by the ex-sports editor, Wanamaker, admitting that he had been guilty of bad judgment in accepting gifts and hospitality from Mr. Geary, but denying that this had affected in any way the paper’s coverage of the sport. Another story described in detail the Surfside security system, the twenty trained security guards, the closed-circuit TV, the tattoos, the two-hour quarantine and the postrace testing by trained veterinarians. Whatever money had passed between the late Max Geary and those on his secret payroll, the public could rest assured that when the dogs sprang out of the starting box, all eight of them sincerely wanted to overtake and devour that synthetic rabbit.

Shayne tore out the list of Geary’s payees and studied it again at dinner. He ate without hurrying, but also without being aware of what he was eating.

The “full” signs were up in Surfside’s own parking lots, and Shayne had to park well to the south of the track, near Harding Park, and walk back. Geary would have been pleased by the turnout. As Shayne paid his way in, the greyhounds were being called onto the track for the third race. The floor was already littered with a drift of uncashed tickets. A covered stage had been erected across from the grandstand, a little off-center so it wouldn’t block the view of the board, which was draped with black bunting. Above the morning-line odds for the next race, lights said: “Surfside Kennel Club Honors the Memory of a Great Sportsman.”

Shayne bought a program and opened it to the page listing the Surfside officials, from Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell Geary, Owners, through the racing secretary and safety director and director of mutuels, the judges and chief clerks, down to the announcer and lure operator and kennelmaster. There was another list of state racing officials, under the Board of Wagering and the Board of Business Regulation. Shayne compared the names with those he had torn out of the News, and found little overlap.

When Surfside was expanded and modernized some years before, to meet the competition of the new tracks across the bay, a huge inside auditorium, the Hall of the Greyhound, had been added, with a theater-sized screen and twenty smaller TV screens along both walls. Here, in chilly weather, bettors could eat and drink at one of the many bars and snack bars, place their bets and watch the races without ever seeing a living dog. Even tonight, with the temperature in the high sixties, there were more customers in the auditorium than in the grandstand or clubhouse. On the innumerable monitors, the speakers scheduled to eulogize Max Geary were about to take their places. Several of the promised dignitaries, including the Senator, had discovered engagements that kept them elsewhere. Here in the murky auditorium, few people were paying attention. The betting windows were closed for the time being, but with eight races left on the program, there was much work to be done.

Shayne went through to the escalators, passing a sign saying, “No Public Admittance Beyond This Point.” The executive offices and racing control were on a long suspended deck, hung from the grandstand roof. The front wall was almost all window, a long double-pane strip starting a foot above floor level and ending at the ceiling. No one was using Geary’s office. Leaving the door slightly ajar, Shayne turned down the volume on the public address outlet so he could hear anyone approaching, and went past the desk. The closed-circuit monitor was set on automatic, clicking from one location to another every twenty seconds. There was a two-drawer file, locked. On the other side of the track, a rabbi was in the midst of the opening prayer. Finding nothing of interest, Shayne moved on.